Olivia Holzhaus

San Antonio

Olivia Gamez Holzhaus is the founding CEO and president of Rhodium Scientific, a San Antonio-based company specializing in research and development (R&D) consulting, facilities management and equipment services for commercial, government and academic laboratories. The company has provided engineering and scientific support to STaARS Inc., a payload development company building spaceflight hardware designed to host scientific projects aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The most recent project was delivered on SpaceX-12 and is currently conducting microgravity experiments in the ISS U.S. National Lab.

With extensive training, Holzhaus developed her love for biotechnology by working in academic and applied laboratories dedicated to cancer tumorigenesis (University of Texas Health Science Center) and microbial fossilization enhancement (Texas State University), and through scientific and engineering positions at Southwest Research Institute and PerkinElmer Health Sciences.

Her desire to continue working closely with scientists and her technical background provided unique opportunities to integrate the company’s industry-level services into new markets, shifting Rhodium Scientific from a regional and terrestrial company to an international and low-earth orbit company. Holzhaus serves as Director-at-Large for the International Space Safety Foundation, an organization aimed at setting commercial spaceflight safety standards and advancing aerospace research among graduate-level investigators.

She received her bachelor of science degree from Texas State University in microbiology and her master of science degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio in management of technology. She is active on Texas State’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.